I like Catwoman, I have liked her since I saw Batman with Michelle Pfeiffer in the role. For me she is the perfect Catwoman and Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway isn’t half a Catwoman as she is! Anyway this is a great comic book; I started reading it late an evening (never a good thing when one has to go up early to find something so delicious to read) and I it was such a good story with lots of lots of villains and some Batman & Catwoman luve!! I’m a girl, I like a bit of snogging sometimes in comics.

The mastermind behind it all? Well it wasn’t all that surprising when he/she was finally reviled. But still it was a freakily great comic. 4 ½!!!

I've always heard amazing things about Hush, the story arc that ran in Batman issues #608 to #619. In all honesty, I found it a bit disappointing.

As is the case with almost every "major" Batman arc, the storyline twists and turns to find its way to a scene with pretty much every villain in the Batman canon. I find Batman works best when he has one or two adversaries, and the dynamic between Batman and his enemies becomes thematically central to the book. The "parade-of-cameos" style is grating, and in this case its particularly heinous. In fact, the book is so blatant in its cameo style approach, that one can simply guess who the big baddie is behind the mystery by simply noticing which Batman villain hasn't shown up yet.

The story isn't particularly interesting either. It starts with Killer Croc kidnapping someone, and Batman defeats him. Then there's a bunch of crap about how this isn't "his style" and how there must be someone who put him up to it. Batman follows questionable clues from character to character, each time determining that Gotham's criminals aren't smart enough to pull off their crimes, and therefore someone else is behind it. There are a number of twists and turns through the story, but every time there's a big reveal, it later turns out that it was Clayface mimicking that person all along, the Batman Universe equivalent of It Was All A Dream. Eventually Batman is led to the person behind it all, where we're treated to 10 pages of dialogue trying to explain how the utterly convoluted plot was able to take place, and then the arc concludes.

Overall, pretty lackluster stuff. Decent art and all, but the writing was just forgettable. Batman's narration boxes annoyed me, with him INCESSANTLY talking about how he and Catwoman are now romantic and how that's a distraction for him. The two get closer and closer over the course of the book, even to the point of Batman getting into an argument with Robin about revealing his identity to Catwoman (don't worry, the argument Was All A Trick). Batman explains he trusts Catwoman so it's alright, but then at the very end Catwoman uses a WORD that makes Batman lose his fucking shit and decide he doesn't trust her after all, in an instant. So, so dumb.

The book is basically enjoyable, and in fact I was going to give it three stars, but as I was thinking about it to write this review I realized how incredibly dumb this storyline is and how poorly written it is. I enjoyed reading it, but now that I think about it, I'm almost kind of embarrassed for having such low standards. In the end, nothing of consequence happens in the entire book - every twist and reveal turns out to be Some Kind of Trick, and the only characters who die are ones who are introduced in the book itself. Thus, the entire story can be skipped without any impact whatsoever, which I suppose is what I recommend doing with it. ( )

I'm not going to be able to add anything that any of the other of the thousands of reviews have already said. But this is clearly one of the best story arcs in the history of Batman. Highly recommended for everyone! ( )

Batman's relationship with Catwoman becomes more intense as an unknown foe, known only as Hush, continues to train the Dark Knight's adversaries, such as the Joker and Harley Quinn, while inflicting torturous mental and physical terror upon Batman, Robin, and Nightwing.… (more)